


Petals For You

by ElisaPhoenix



Series: Marvel What If's [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt Peter Quill, Idiots in Love, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Other, Peter Quill Feels, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 19:31:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20644490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElisaPhoenix/pseuds/ElisaPhoenix
Summary: It all started with a goddamn setting sun that kickstarted Quill's doom.





	Petals For You

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. So this is my first Hanahaki fic so be nice please! This is kind of a what if. It is still connected to the Mama Bear AU for character reasons, but can also kind of stand by itself.

Quill came to Earth because he wanted to properly meet those he had fought beside against Thanos and his army, as well as catch up with what he had missed. Technology had very obviously been upgraded while he was gone if his Zune was anything to go by, and Tony's AI's blew his mind. When he arrived at the tower asking if he could stay for a little while, the billionaire stuck him with...well he wasn't sure who. Thumbelina couldn't have been their real name. Tony asked FRIDAY to call 'Thumbelina' up to the family floor, and Quill munched on some chips Peter and Harley had offered him. They were right. You couldn't eat just one.

When Scott finally made it up to their floor, Tony properly introduced them.

"Thumbelina...Porcupine." Stephen had actually facepalmed at his husband's idea of an introduction. "He's gonna crash on your floor while he's here and whenever he visits."  
Quill sticks out his hand and barely catches the weird look the shorter man gives him. "Quill. Peter Quill. Or Starlord."  
"Uhh...Scott Lang. Antman." He reaches out to shake Quill's hand while another weird look flashes across his face and then he looks at Tony. "I don't mind, but why my floor?"  
Tony shrugs. "Figured you guys might like the same things and you're one of the few that has the patience to answer any questions Porcupine has. He hasn't been on Earth for thirty years."  
Scott's eyes widen and he looks at Quill. "You're joking."  
"Nope." Quill replies.

Scott took that knowledge in stride and Tony was right. He did like some of the same things that Quill did, introduced him to the newest technology, apps like Spotify, and always answered any questions the pirate had even if it came out sounding dumb. Scott just smiled and assured him that thirty years away from Earth was a good excuse. They were fast friends, _best friends_, and did almost everything together. Watched movies, ate dinner, hell...Quill even went with Scott (and sometimes Cassie) when he ran errands. New York was just _a little bit better_ than Knowhere with the hustle and bustle, and Quill definitely _did not_ have a small meltdown at the grocery store.

Oranges were called oranges for a reason.

He and Scott even fought together well during missions or invasions. In fact, they were rarely seen apart. If one saw Quill, it wouldn't take much looking to find Scott nearby, and vice versa. 

The shit had to hit the fan for him eventually though, and his first warning he had shrugged off. Quill and Scott decided to have a movie night and were sitting on the couch, finishing their first movie, when Scott stood up.

"Cassie said she was going upstairs to make cookies with Dia. I'm gonna go see if they're done and if there's any left."  
"Oh. Sure. I'll look for the next movie." Quill says as he picks up the remote.

Scott was halfway to the elevator when he suddenly turned to face Quill and ask him a question but the space pirate was too distracted by the new view he got. Specifically the way the rays of the setting sun hit the other man's eyes and made them look _gold_. That was when he knew he was in trouble. Because the first thought that came to his mind when he saw that?

_Holy shit he looks beautiful._

Not 'oh cool', or anything a friend might think of that scene, but _beautiful_.

"Quill?" Scott's voice filters through his fog of confusion and Quill shakes his head.  
"What?"  
"I asked if you wanted anything while I'm up there."  
"I could really go for a beer right now." Quill says with a groan as he stretches out and kicks his feet up onto the coffee table.

Scott's answering grin would be his downfall. As soon as the younger male disappeared onto the elevator, Quill felt a tickle in his throat and coughed to clear it, only for a single flower petal to escape past his lips. _What the fuck?_ Did he maybe swallow it when they were out running errands today? It had been windy so it was possible. Quill was still staring at the petal in his hand when Scott came back about five minutes later, and the thief drops back onto the couch beside him and holds out Quill's requested beer.

"What are you looking at Spaceman?" Scott nudges the bottle of beer into Quill's other hand as he looks down at the flower petal. "Oh. Looks like that came from a gardenia. Those are my favorite."  
Quill sniggers. "You can tell from one petal?"  
"Shut up. There's nothing wrong with having a favorite flower!"  
"I didn't say there was!"

The petal was then all but forgotten and Quill shrugged it off. He was too occupied with keeping his feelings to himself anyway. He thought that maybe it was just a spur of the moment infatuation, but it wasn't. The more he watched Scott, the more he started to notice the little things, and the more he fell. Scott's smile gave him life now. Seeing him get hurt affected him even more.

Seeing Scott flirt with Stephen had him coughing again, and this time it was more than one petal. That was when Quill started to worry. He hadn't been outside at all that day when it happened, and it was still white gardenia petals. Quill just threw them away and acted as if nothing happened when Scott turned to him and asked him to run errands with him again. Of course he went without a second thought. He loved spending time with his fellow thief. Even Cassie. She was sassy but also incredibly sweet and seemed to like Quill. Once, she jumped onto his back and used him as a shield when Harley was threatening her with a potato gun, and the boy fled as soon as he found out she was using the celestial as protection.

Powers that had been dormant until Scott got hurt on a mission but no one knew that Scott was the trigger of course. Now Cassie used him as a human (god) shield on a regular basis. Quill didn't mind. He thought it was actually pretty funny.

Stephen noticed the third time Quill coughed up some petals and it had been a small handful, and just when they finished a mission. All he did was look at Scott grinning over their victory and it threw Quill into a coughing fit. He tried to hide the petals by covering his mouth, but a couple had slipped through and Stephen was dragging him through a portal and into the medbay before Quill could process it.

"When did this start?" The sorcerer asks calmly but with obvious concern in his eyes.  
"What? The petals? It's nothing-" Quill waves his hand at Stephen but the doctor grabs his wrist.  
"It is a _very big deal._ When did it start?"  
"I don't know...a couple of months ago? How is it a big deal?" Quill asks dubiously.

Then Stephen told him what was wrong with him. Hanahaki disease. When a victim suffered from unrequited love, flowers took root in their lungs and grew. They would cough up petals over time, and if they didn't admit their feelings to the person they loved, and then have those feelings returned, the flowers would grow to the point where they would suffocate the victim and they would die. It was extremely rare and Stephen didn't even know it existed in this universe until he saw Quill coughing up flower petals.

"It supposedly only affects those that are truly in love with someone. There are other universes where it could affect anyone in love...but here? It may sound cliche, but true love." Stephen sighs.  
"How do I get rid of it then?" Quill asks quietly.  
"You have two options. Surgery...but that could also take away the feelings _and_ the memories of the person of interest..."  
Quill winces at that option. "The second?"  
"You tell Scott." Quill sputters at the mention of his floormate and Stephen rolls his eyes. "Oh please, you'd have to be as blind as Scott to not see that you love him."

Quill coughs again and Stephen frowns when the pirate pulls his hand away to find a small handful of white petals covered in specks of blood. He didn't have much time now. Maybe another month at most, but he couldn't do _either_ of the choices that Stephen presented him with. The time he spent with Scott was too special to him to risk losing. He loved every moment. Every song they listened to together, the comfortable silences while Scott worked and Quill watched tv, movie nights...all of it. He couldn't tell Scott either though. He didn't want to ruin this friendship he had. Scott was his best friend and he never had one of those before. What if he told Scott his feelings for him and he rejected him? That would ruin what they had _and_ he would be stuck with these damn flowers in his throat anyway. Maybe then he would have the surgery and forget all of this. Scott would reject him, Quill would have the flowers surgically removed, and he would go back into space like nothing had ever happened.

Scott would know though. He would keep those memories. He would probably find out about the hanahaki disease and feel responsible and Quill couldn't do that to him. This all sucked. No matter what he did, Scott would be the real victim, because Quill had a third choice.

Enjoy the time he had left with Scott.

Maybe before the flowers took his life, the least he could do is write a note and try to reassure Scott that none of it was his fault. That it was Quill's choice.

He must have had an obvious look on his face because Stephen actually glared at him. "I will not step back and watch you kill yourself like a fool. You have the two options I have given you and nothing else!"  
Quill returns the glare with one of his own. "I don't remember asking you what decision I should make! I only asked you for ways I might get rid if this! If I choose neither that's on me!"

Then he stormed off and back up to the floor he shared with Scott and Cassie. He barely noticed that Cassie was trying to keep Diana occupied in the living room when he went up to his room, and kept to himself for the rest of the night. He needed some time to cool down and come to terms with his inevitable doom. Scott had knocked on the door to check up on Quill, and after managing to tell the younger that he was just tired and was turning in early, he had coughed up a larger handful of gardenia petals. These covered in a little more blood as he threw them away. A month was pushing it.

He was back to spending time with Scott the next morning, but as time passed, the coughing got worse. Breathing started to become difficult. The time he had left to spend with Scott was being spent in his room because the petals came too often. He had to hide his illness from Scott because he didn't want to worry him anymore than he already was. At the moment, Scott just thought he was catching a cold with how much he was coughing, and Quill was thankful that none of the petals had escaped around the younger man.

One day, about three weeks after Stephen confronted him, Quill had to bow out of a mission. Breathing had become too difficult and he could barely walk down to the kitchen without wheezing, let alone fight. He was an immortal god, and a disease that supposedly originated from folk lore would be what killed him. He could still die, but it would be incredibly hard to kill him (unless it was death by a broken heart/lovesickness obviously). Maybe that was what was best. Even if Scott miraculously returned his feelings, Quill wouldn't be able to grow old with him and he wasn't sure if he could share that immortality.

Just the thought of Scott had Quill vomiting petals and blood, and he actually had to use the wall for support so he wouldn't fall over. Breathing was now a distant memory as he lowered himself to the ground and leaned against the wall, wheezing being his new way of getting oxygen into his body. He was alone in his room, everyone else out on a mission that he couldn't help with, and for one second he wished Scott was with him. Just one. That one second he wished he wasn't alone while he suffocated to death, but then the second had passed and he was glad Scott didn't have to watch him suffer. Or Cassie. Or anyone really. 

Black spots slowly filled his vision as he gasped for breath until all he could see were outlines, and that was when his brain tried to comfort him in his last moments. An outline of _someone_ enters his field of vision, and Quill relaxes when he smells the strange combination of mint and oranges. His brain was comforting him with details of the one person that was the reason for his doom, but he didn't care. He would take it. Even if the hands on his face was just an illusion. The sounds that followed were too muffled to decipher if they were words, but it had been Scott's voice he heard somewhere in that mess he heard.

Then his brain supplied him with the kiss that Quill had been (literally) dying to experience. Scott tasted exactly as he expected which was just like he smelled, and the kiss was surprisingly soft. 

Some part of Quill's brain that was still getting oxygen screamed at him though. Screamed that this was real, and for a split second he believed it. For a split second, Quill believed that Scott loved him back and that he was really being kissed and that split second was enough. He pulled away and _breathed_. His vision cleared with each gulp of air he took in and he could feel the flowers in his throat shriveling away until it was like he never suffered from hanahaki. As soon as he looked up with the hopes that this wasn't a dream (or that he had died), he gaze met Scott's misty hazel and he stared. It had been real. Those muffled sounds he heard was Scott talking to him, and when Quill didn't respond, he took to a more physical approach.

"Victor alerted Stephen to your condition. So Stephen told me what was going on and opened a portal for me." Quill says nothing as he brain continues to recover from the lack of oxygen and the extra information that Scott is rambling about. "Why didn't you say something?!"  
"You...you're my first best friend, and I didn't want to ruin that. I didn't want to risk forgetting you either." Quill manages to say after he gets his mouth to cooperate. "I thought I loved Gamora...but you're a whole different level."  
"You suffered for nothing you moron! I'm pretty sure I loved you the moment I met you and--mmph!"

Quill interrupts Scott's rant and pulls him into another kiss. It was all real. He was alive, and Scott _loved him back_. Kissing Scott was now the only reason Quill would keep himself from breathing. Something he definitely wouldn't take for granted anymore. Air was a luxury now.

When Scott pulled away, he looked down at the blood-stained petals scattered on the ground next to Quill and looked at them with open disdain. "I officially hate gardenias now."  
Quill's chuckle rumbles in his chest. "How about tulips?"  
Scott smiles. "Tulips _are_ pretty."  
Quill reaches up and brushes his thumb along Scott's jaw. "I love you Scotty. I'm sorry I didn't say something before."  
"I love you too Spaceman. Dumbassery and all."  
"_Hey!_"

**Author's Note:**

> I probably changed a few things that may not be accurate with Hanahaki but it's really something that can be changed anyway and I'm proud of this!


End file.
